$21.6M awarded to parents of teenager hit by bus

A Los Angeles County Superior Court jury awarded $21.6 million to the parents of a teenage girl who died after being hit by a bus in Redondo Beach four years ago.

After nearly two weeks of testimony in Los Angeles County Superior Court, the jury awarded Ciara Smith's father $11.1 million, and her mother $10.5 million against defendant MV Transportation Inc., which contracts with the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority. The jury also found that co-defendants City of Redondo Beach was 10% at fault, and the California Department of Transportation 15% at fault.

Just before trial, CalTrans and the City of Redondo Beach each settled with the family for $4.9 million. With the jury handing down $21.6 million and assigning 25% fault to the two co-defendants, the Smiths received $16.2 million in net from MV Transportation Inc., which was the lone defendant left in the case. Interest that has accrued since February 2019 will be added to the verdict, which now raises the damages to $22.3 million. With the interest added to the verdict, and the settlement from City of Redondo Beach and CalTrans, the Smith family will receive $32.1 million in total from the incident, according to plaintiffs' counsel Garo Mardirossian.

The jury found no fault on the teen's part, which was the most important aspect of the case for the family, Mardirossian said Thursday.

"The most important thing for the parents of this [13]-year-old precocious little girl was to have the jury decide whether their daughter did anything wrong to cause her death," Mardirossian said. One of the major disputes at trial was whether the teen bore any fault in causing the collision.

"The jury's finding placing 'zero' liability on her provided them with the closure they were looking for," he added.

David S. Poole of Poole & Shaffery LLP represented the defendant MV Transportation Inc. and the bus driver Daniyielle Murphy and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority. He did not respond in a request for comment on the verdict. In court papers, Poole argued the teen was at fault and maintained the incident was partially caused by public entities for failing to maintain the intersection where the collision occurred. He said the teen rode her bike outside the crosswalk area on Knob Hill Avenue out onto Pacific Coast Highway and into the path of the bus.

According to the lawsuit, the teen was riding her bike with a friend on the northern sidewalk eastbound on Knob Hill approaching the intersection on Pacific Coast Highway on May 5, 2017. When Ciara reached the intersection, she began to turn right to cross Knob Hill southbound. While traveling on Knob Hill, the bus driver crashed into Ciara. The bus caught the teen's handlebar on her left side, forcing her under the bus. Ciara was pronounced dead on scene.

Los Angeles County Judge Stephen Czuleger presided over the trial. Barry Smith et al. v. State of California, CalTrans, et al., BC680763 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Oct. 23, 2017)